Writing on HuffPo, a physician calls for a mandatory helmet law for all cyclists, motor and otherwise. While I strongly favor helmet use — but oppose making it illegal not to — I’d like to know where he got the unsourced statistic that bike helmets reduce traumatic brain injury (TBI) by 95%.

He also fails to mention that falls are the leading cause of TBIs in the U.S., followed by traffic collisions, hitting or getting hit on the head, and assaults. Or that 45% of injury-related deaths occur in and around the home.

Clearly, the solution is to mandate helmet use for everyone, 24/7.

You know, just in case.

And in another example of America’s obsession with bike helmets, a North Carolina cyclist is killed riding without lights after dark.

Oddly, the reporter focuses on her lack of a helmet, which may or may not have helped, but ignores the obvious risks posed by riding without lights; after all, if she’d been using lights, whether or not she had a helmet might not have mattered.

Meanwhile, the World Anti Doping Agency tells Spain don’t go easy on him or else. And ex-Tour de France champ Floyd “I swear I’m clean and would never, ever dope — oh wait, yeah, I guess I did” Landis says clenbuterol is common in the peloton and guilty riders are protected. Is it just me, or is Contador’s “clear me or I quit” attitude actually starting to make Floyd Landis look good? Or like less of a pathetic lying jerk, at least?

Or maybe not the only one, anyway.

In other pro news, politics may play a role in the investigation into Lance Armstrong, and rising star Taylor Phinney may focus on the road classics rather than track events, and may defend his world pursuit crown

Like this:

Oddly, Thanksgiving is still being held this year, despite marketers’ attempts to bypass it in favor of endlessly extending the holiday shopping season.

Or am I the only one offended by Christmas carols that began playing in stores before Halloween this year — let alone repeated attempts to move Black Friday up by several weeks. And since when has a day that marked retailers’ profits finally moving into the black become a holiday in its own right, anyway?

I won’t bore you with a list of things I’m thankful for. I’ll just acknowledge, as the LACBC pointed out, this has been a very good year for local cyclists. By far, the best in my memory, in fact; a year when the voices of cyclists finally shook the halls of government.

And our civic leaders actually did something about it.

I hope you’ll take a moment to appreciate the people and blessings in your life, as I do in mine. And I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read what I have to share, whether it’s your first time here or you’re a long time regular.

I have a lot to be thankful for.

And I’m very glad that Thanksgiving still means something.

.………

Bike Skirt offers thanks for her many bike blessings, while Damien Newton says thanks to all Streetsblog readers and supporters.

I’ve been catching up AMC’s Walking Dead lately — a must for fans of the mindless flesh-eating oeuvre, especially those of us who prefer the classic slow-moving zombies to their zippier modern brethren.

Watching it caused me to briefly entertain the notion that those swarming undead masses hungry for human flesh might make a decent metaphor for some of the deadlier drivers with whom we find ourselves sharing the roads.

But it didn’t really fit.

While too many drivers operate mindlessly behind the wheel, and allow their cell phones and other distractions to divert their attention from the road, the simple fact is that most drivers aren’t actually out to get us, despite how it sometimes seems. And while there may be great swarms of them swirling around us, the overwhelming majority of motorists are more concerned with the minutiae of their own lives than the presence of those of us on two wheels.

And yes, that is every bit as good and bad as it sounds.

Still, there are some scattered in that great mass of humanity on our roads who really do want to cause us harm.

Think of it as the early stages of a zombie infestation, when there are still just a few infected souls feasting on the unsuspecting.

Or the driver who made a U-turn to come back and hit Opus the Poet, nom de web of the author of Witch on a Bicycle.

As long time readers will know, Opus has made it his life’s work to report on collisions and assaults involving cyclists, and offer advice on how to avoid similar situations yourself.

But what you may not know is that he himself is a survivor of a horrific near-fatal collision that left him with lasting life-changing injuries. And the simple fact that he’s still here riding and fighting for other cyclists makes him far more than just another bike blogger in my book.

In the last few days, though, he revealed that he finally found the driver who hit him; ironically, by the time he finally found the driver, the man was already six feet under in a local cemetery, the victim of another collision. And for the first time I’m aware of, Opus explained just what happened — and what it’s like to know he’ll never have a chance to confront his attacker:

There’s not much to tell from before the wreck. Until I got hit Dallas and Richardson cops would shadow my commute route because as one cop put it “Son, you are an idiot magnet.” and they could get a month’s worth of tickets from people acting stupid around me on my after midnight commute home. Garland cops couldn’t have cared less. Just before I crossed into Garland someone in a white pickup shouted at me to “Get off the Fucking road!” and a few minutes later someone in a white pickup shouted the same thing doing about 65 MPH just before I got hit by him….

Well in spite of finding out the guy I wanted to torture to death with blunt impact trauma has already died life must go on (just not for him). I never will get to find out why he made a u-turn around a median to come back and kill me, what inspired that level of rage. I think that’s the thing that bothers me the most about this whole “resolution” thing, it doesn’t resolve anything. I want to know “Why?” so I can do something about it in the future. Of course if the answer to “Why?” is “Because I’m an asshole and don’t like bicycles on the road.” there isn’t much I can do about that except request some kind of screening during the driver’s license test that prevents people like that from ever getting a license, along with stricter laws against driving without a license, ideally the same penalties as carrying concealed without a CHL. Whatever, I’m just glad the asshole population on the roads in control of deadly weapons of mass destruction has been reduced by one.

Then there’s our own biking Boogey Man, the good doctor whose name we invoke to frighten young cyclists — knowing full well that the man who used his car to attack two cyclists in Mandeville Canyon is locked safely behind bars.

Surprisingly, though, cyclist and attorney Dj Wheels, who has followed the case from the beginning — and brought all of us into the courtroom with him — says he may have a point. While he’s still giving it some thought, he says it looks like Thompson may have some interesting, and potentially valid, arguments.

There’s no excuse. Size doesn’t matter: New York and Chicago, the cities that bracket us in size, are going great guns on bike infrastructure, and they also have the issues of budget constraints, poverty, diversity, and a multiplicity of languages and culture that LA officials have used to excuse our slow crawl towards a Bicycle Millennium.

Don’t get me wrong; there’s a lot of great work being done for cycling in LA. I wrote it up last year. But most of it’s being done by NGOs such as the LACBC, CICLE, and so forth. LA’s government seems to be in a reactive mode. And that isn’t the way to get things done very quickly.

Still, it’s what we have. This means that making Los Angeles a true bicycling city is up to us for now.

Yeah, that means you too. Look up those organizations linked to in the previous sentence and lend a hand. The more of us are involved, the louder will be our voices (and our votes). Eventually they’ll have to listen.

He’s right.

It’s up to us. And there’s strength in numbers. It’s not enough to ride your bike and bitch about how bad things are here. You need to get involved.

The sad fact is, if you combined the total membership of every bike advocacy organization in the L.A. area, at most, maybe 10% of the cyclists who ride on a daily basis belong to one, based on the estimated number of riders in the new bike plan.

And that number drops to 2% or less of the people who ride on a monthly basis — many of whom would ride more often if there was sufficient infrastructure in place to make them feel safer on our streets.

So get involved.

Don’t wait. Don’t think about it.

If you don’t already belong to an advocacy organization, sign up today.

Make it an early New Years resolution to find one that supports your goals and interests.

But join something, now.

Because one voice is easily ignored. But together, the cycling community will have a powerful voice to shake the halls of government, here in L.A. and the surrounding SoCal communities, as well as in Sacramento and D.C.

And we haven’t even cleared out throat yet.

It’s time to be heard.

.………

A recall has been ordered for Full Speed Ahead BB30 Gossamer double crank sets; bikes affected include 2010 and 2010 models from Bianchi, Cannondale, Felt, Fuji, Quintana Roo, Litespeed, Raleigh and Scattante. The cranks affected are painted black with “Gossamer” in white lettering or white with “Gossamer” in black lettering, and have serial numbers beginning with 10B, 10C or 10D; injuries have been reported as a result of defective cranks.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to be there; if you can’t, or if you read this later, I hope you’ll join me in offering a short prayer or a moment of silence for Jim, his wife Lulu and all of their family and loved ones.

.………

A couple of friends raised a good point lately.

They said that, while they enjoy reading about biking in this overgrown traffic-choked city we call home, it’s depressing to read about the seemingly endless barrage of deaths on SoCal streets lately.

It’s certainly not to suggest that cycling is dangerous. The number of people killed or injured on bikes pales in comparison to the number of miles we ride every day. And as studies have shown, the benefits of bicycling more than outweigh whatever risks we may face on the roads.

Except in rare cases, traffic fatalities seldom make the news. Or if one does, it’s usually just a few paragraphs buried in the paper or on a news website.

If you’ve been a reader here for awhile, you may have noticed that few things offend me more than a news report that doesn’t tell you much more than someone was killed while riding a bike.

Nothing about how it happened or why, or who was responsible; nothing about the victim or the heart-wrenching hole that’s been torn in the lives left behind. Sometimes, not even a name, or any follow-up once it’s released.

On rare occasions, the press gets it right. Other times, I feel like someone has to make sure they aren’t forgotten. And when I look around, I see that someone is usually me.

I’ve received enough comments and emails from family and friends of the various victims to know that it offers at least some comfort to know that someone, even a total stranger, cared enough to say something.

Second, I want to put whatever pressure I can on the mainstream media to same them into reporting these stories.

Somehow, we long ago reached the point where traffic fatalities ceased to be news. The 33,000 or more deaths that occur on American roads each year have come to be seen as collateral damage, the cost of getting from here to there — if we even stop to think about it at all.

But it’s something we have to think about, because the cost is too damn high.

The average American driver has long ago forgotten that a motor vehicle is an exceptionally dangerous thing. When we look at our cars, trucks, vans and SUVs, we see friendly, almost anthropomorphic machines that carry our loads and get us where we want to go.

And no one ever looks in the mirror and sees a careless, distracted or overly aggressive driver.

But maybe we should.

It’s responsibility of the press to be that mirror, and force us to take a cold, hard look at ourselves. Even if we don’t like what we see.

It may be too much to ask them to report on each of the nearly 31,000 or more fatal collisions every year (the numbers don’t add up because some collisions result in more than one death). But the relative handful of bicycling deaths — 630 nationwide last year — can, and should be, reported.

Because along with pedestrians, we’re the ones most vulnerable to the actions and distractions of those with whom we share the road.

Finally, it has to stop.

No one should have to risk their life simply because he or she decided to go out for a bike ride, or chose to benefit our city and planet by choosing a healthier and less harmful mode of transportation.

Compared to 33,000 total traffic deaths, 630 may not seem like much. But even one death is one too many — let alone 14 in the last four months alone.

As others have pointed out, the death of a cyclist is no more tragic than the death of pedestrian or a motorist, or any of the other countless accidental or violent deaths that occur in our cities everyday.

I learned a long time ago, though, that I can’t fight every fight, no matter how much I may care. But this is one I can take on.

I’m a cyclist, and this website is about bicycling.

That makes it my fight.

Our fight.

And I intend to do everything in my power to make sure that the last bike death was the last bike death.

If we can do that, then the loss of people like Jim Laing and Danny Marin may not feel any less tragic or heartbreaking than they do today.

But maybe, just maybe, some good will come out of them.

.………

In a non-bike related case, a driver with two previous DUI convictions gets 15 years to life for causing a fatal freeway collision by trying to pass rush hour traffic on the shoulder at over 70 mph while high on grass and prescription drugs.

Flying Pigeon and the Bike Oven host the free Spoke(n) Art Ride on the 2nd Saturday of every month; the next ride will take place on Saturday, December 11th, starting 6:30 pm at 3714 N. Figueroa St. in Highland Park.

Mark your calendar for the LACBC’s all-day Holiday Open House on Tuesday, December 28th at the Library Alehouse, 2911 Main Street in Santa Monica. Festivities begin at 11 am and continue until closing with great food and beer, fun and raffle prizes; a percentage of the days sales will be donated to the LACBC.

Just one of the many massive potholes cyclists have to contend with in the City of Angels.

No one has to tell L.A. cyclists that the streets are getting worse.

These days, even a brief ride means dodging potholes and ridges of rumpled asphalt that can take down even the most careful riders. And God help the bike rider taking a new route after dark, unaware of the road hazards that lay hidden in the night.

That was driven, or more precisely, ridden home last night, as my riding companion and I plowed into a deep rut left behind by road work on Olympic Blvd.

We both hit it hard; my front wheel hit it squarely, causing my back wheel to fly off the ground and briefly putting me at risk of going over the handlebars. Fortunately, I nailed the landing and escaped unscathed.

My companion wasn’t so lucky.

While he successfully navigated the rut, it took a toll on his tires as the rear quickly went flat. Once he got the tire off, it didn’t take long to spot the telltale twin snakebite punctures caused by solid smack against an unflinching surface. Fortunately, I had a spare tube with me, and we were back on our way in just a few minutes.

Unfortunately, though, the city’s budget problems mean that the roads aren’t going to get fixed anytime soon. While L.A. says it’s still fixing potholes, the job doesn’t seem to be getting done as fast or as well as it has in the past, and other issues — like the trench we hit last night — present more complicated problems. And many streets are long past the point where patching would do any good.

Which bring us to my current candidate for the worst pothole in the city.

Other cyclists may point to the huge recurring pothole caused by flowing water on 4th Street known as the Hudson River. Or the endless series of cracks, ruts and gaping holes on the westbound stretch of Wilshire Blvd between Beverly Glen and Wilshire Blvds unaffectionately called the Gauntlet.

Pothole planter at Glendon and Holman.

But I would direct your attention to the intersection of Holman and Glendon Avenues in Westwood, where you’ll find what I call the Westwood Community Garden — a pothole of such breadth, depth and duration that is has grown to become an unofficial city planter.

And judging by the multiple L.A. Street Services sawhorses gathered in its gaping maw, one that the city is well aware of and chooses to ignore, instead allowing nature to reclaim a small section of our asphalt megalopolis.

Fortunately, it’s not a street that cyclists frequent. And we can always use a little more greenery here on the Westside.

So call it a victory of nature. Or even a failure of city government.

Just don’t try riding through it.

L.A. Street Services has clearly staked out their turf.

If you have a better candidate for Pothole of the Year, send me your photos and I’ll post them on here. The winner will receive absolutely nothing, other than the satisfaction of knowing the continued neglect of your streets has not gone unnoticed by your peers.

And remember — unless you know for a fact that there are no cars behind you or on your left, you’re often better off riding through the pothole than suddenly darting into traffic to go around it.

Meanwhile, a teenage salmon cyclist in Calabasas stops a drunk driver after narrowly avoiding a collision himself. Oddly, while recognizing his actions, not one word about the obvious dangers of riding the wrong way in traffic — or that he wouldn’t have been in the drunk’s way to begin with if he’d been riding on the right side of the street.

They show that while the average jury award in a bike case is $279,970, the median is only $50,000, thanks to a handful of high verdicts that skew the average. And they reveal that cyclists only prevail in 41% of cases — something that hasn’t significantly changed in the past 20 years.

In case you wonder why, you only have to look as far the comment section of virtually any online story about bicycling. There are people who just don’t like cyclists and don’t think we belong on the roads — and believe anything that happens to us as a result is our fault, regardless of what the law says.

And those are some of the same people you’ll find in jury pools.

To put it in perspective, motorcyclists injured by cars — hardly a popular group in our society — prevail in court roughly two-thirds of the time.

Which means we’re even less sympathetic to jurors than your neighborhood biker.

As Miller’s legal partner, Laura G. Zois, put it,

The motorcycle thing (that) drives our lawyers crazy is when we know our client is a motorcyclist who did the right thing and the defense lawyer is just using the bias against motorcyclists in a way that completely ignores the real facts. But I’m amazed this same bias also exists to bike riders.

Miller himself adds,

I think the relatively low success rate of bicycle accident cases at trial is a general bias against bikes that may be even stronger than the bias against motorcycles. Many jurors, who typically drive cars, simply think bicycles shouldn’t be on the road.

However, one place I disagree with him is that, like our mayor, he calls for a mandatory helmet law.

While I never ride without one — and credit mine for saving my life in the Infamous Beachfront Bee Encounter a few years back — I think making helmet use mandatory would be counterproductive.

As others have pointed out, despite the low rate of helmet use in many parts of Europe, the injury rate is also significantly lower, which many people ascribe to the greater number of cyclists on the road and greater emphasis on accident prevention. And there is evidence to suggest that the reduction in injury rates in areas with helmet laws is due to a decline in ridership after the law takes effect, rather than an actual reduction in the rate of injuries per mile travelled.

I think a program to encourage helmet use — such as a tax break for buying a helmet or a discount on insurance rates for using one — would do far more to increase the number of riders who wear one, as opposed to a more punitive approach that might only increase the percentage of helmet use, while reducing the actual number cyclists on the road.

On the other hand, one study I haven’t seen yet is the effect helmet use has on jury verdicts.

I have a feeling most jurors would look far more favorably on an injured rider with a skid lid than one without one.

And be far more likely to blame the helmetless rider for his own injuries.

.………

I love this comment from Meghan Kavanagh on her Facebook page; made, she said, in frustration after nearly getting run over from both directions while in a crosswalk:

We should not have to educate seniors, pedestrians, and cyclists on how to deal with reckless drivers. We should stop the reckless driving.

Finally, after the year with no summer, this is what November looks like on the beach. And it turns out the reason we need a Subway to the Sea is that above ground rail has been permanently barred from Wilshire Blvd, as in forever.

A couple quick personal notes — a speedy recovery to Rach, who survived a silent collision with a Prius last night, and says she managed to capture a photo of the suspect. Welcome to Cheryl T, who recently bought a bike and joined the L.A. cycling community; remember, new girl buys the donuts. And happy anniversary to LAPD Chief Beck, who in one year has done more to improve relations with the cycling community than all the chiefs who came before.

Evidently, Stephen Box isn’t the only local bike advocate running for City Council next spring.

I’d glanced at the list of candidates who filed before the deadline on Saturday, but hadn’t really paid much attention to it; other than Box and the current council members running for re-election, none of the names jumped out at me.

I should have looked a little harder.

I was on the phone last night with Hillel Aron, Editor-at-Large of Neon Tommy, USC’s outstanding online news source, when he asked what I thought about bike advocates such as Stephen Box and Glenn Bailey running for the council.

Wait a minute, I said.

Glenn Bailey is running for L.A. City Council?

So as soon as I got off the phone, I went back to look at the list of candidates to succeed retiring Councilmember Grieg Smith. And there he was, one of 11 candidates running in that district and the 72nd person to file for the council in Los Angeles, filing his papers on Friday, November 12th.

It’s true.

Neighborhood Council member and Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair Glenn Bailey is running for City Council in the Valley’s District 12. And yes, it’s the same Glenn Bailey.

Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s going to be on the ballot.

He still has to gather 1000 valid signatures (pdf) by December 8th to make it on the ballot, or gather 500 signatures and pay a $300 filing fee; unfortunately, petitions can only be signed by people registered to vote in that district or I’d volunteer to sign right now. And he has until December 13th to change his mind and back out.

But depending on how things turn out on March 8th, two of the city’s leading voices on behalf of cyclists could be doing a lot more than speaking for us.

And speaking of Grieg Smith, he promises to protect the Wilbur Ave bike lanes when and if the road diet is reconfigured.

.………

In light of Bailey’s candidacy, this would be a good time to remember his eloquent remarks at Mayor Villaraigosa’s recent Bike Summit.

Good morning Mayor Villaraigosa, fellow cyclists.

On behalf of the City’s Bicycle Advisory Committee, thank you for the opportunity to participate in the Mayor’s Bike Summit.

The BAC, was established by Mayor Bradley 35 years ago to make recommendations to the City on all bicycle related matters. It is composed of an appointee of each of the fifteen Councilmembers and four from the Mayor. For most of Mayor Bradley’s twenty years in office, his office staffed the Committee. As a result, when the Mayor’s office called a City department about a bicycle matter, they were usually responsive.

Several days ago the Mayor’s office requested the top bicycle priorities of the BAC. I invited each BAC member to respond and those suggestions have been compiled and submitted to your office as an “unofficial” list.

____________________________________________________________

Mr. Mayor, last December in an interview from Copenhagen you stated that the Los Angeles has to do a much better job for bicycling. We couldn’t agree more.

A better job for bicycling means safely accommodating bicycles on all projects, on all streets, without exception.

A better job for bicycling means the prompt repair of potholes, cleaning debris, and other hazardous road conditions.

A better job for bicycling means the vigorous enforcement against the blocking of bike lanes by delivery vehicles, unhitched trailers, or anything else. (Audience: trash cans!)

A better job for bicycling means a transit system that integrates cyclists in every aspect of its operation, not just when it’s convenient to do so.

A better job for bicycling means providing convenient and secure parking at every City building and park, including at City Hall itself, and at all commercial and retail locations.

A better job for bicycling means holding the line, in fact, rolling back the recent increases in speed limits.

A better job for bicycling means a properly trained police force that enforces the law equally and fairly and that protects and respects the rights of cyclists.

A better job for bicycling means vehicular hit and runs will be fully investigated and prosecuted for the crimes that they are.

A better job for bicycling means a visionary and robust City Bicycle Plan that is implemented each and every day, not just sitting on sitting on a shelf for five years awaiting its next revision.

A better job for bicycling means installing at least fifty miles of bicycle lanes every year for the next three years, rather than the five mile annual average of the past fourteen years under the current 1996 Bicycle Plan.

A better job for bicycling means incorporating the City Council endorsed Cyclist’s Bill of Rights in the operation of every City department and every action taken by the City and its employees.

And a better job for bicycling means welcoming and encouraging cyclists to participate in every step of the decision making process, the outcome of which affects our very lives.

The social calendar is starting to get busy, as the South Bay Bike Coalition is holding an informal cocktail mixer from 7 – 9 Tuesday night, and the Bikerowave plans a New Years Eve party, which could be the highlight, or highlighter, of the year.